Measure Would Require Future Surface Warships To Be Nuclear

December 09, 2007|BY DAVID LERMAN, dlerman@tribune.com 202-824-8224

WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a defense policy bill that would require the Navy to design all future classes of major warships with nuclear power - a decision that potentially opens up more work for Northrop Grumman Newport News.

The Newport News shipyard is one of only two nuclear-capable yards in the country and the only one with a history of building large surface combat ships.

The only nuclear ships in the Navy's fleet today are aircraft carriers and submarines.

But the new policy - if given final approval by Congress, as expected in coming days - would require new classes of surface warships to go nuclear.

The policy would have an immediate effect on the next-generation cruiser, the first of which is set to get under construction in 2011.

A study of design options for the ship is nearing completion in the Pentagon.

The new congressional language would require the cruiser to be nuclear-powered unless the secretary of defense notifies Congress that a nuclear system "is not in the national interest."

Navy officials have long expressed interest in nuclear power because of the endurance that it provides ships at sea by forgoing the need for refueling.

But in testimony to Congress this year, they warned that nuclear cruisers would be costly, perhaps adding $600 million to $800 million to the price of a ship.

Lawmakers acknowledged the cost but said the United States had a national security interest in building toward a nuclear fleet.

In an age of terrorism, they said, it's dangerous for the U.S. military to depend on foreign oil and frequent refuelings during long deployments.

A terrorist strike against oil tankers needed for refueling, they noted, could cripple the conventionally powered cruisers and other escort ships needed to protect carriers.

"The future is nuclear," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. and chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower, in an earlier interview.

The critical choice on the cruiser's power supply could hold profound consequences for the shipbuilding industry.

A decision to go nuclear could funnel billions of dollars to either or both of the nuclear yards - Northrop Grumman Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut - at the expense of conventional shipyards.

The Navy's long-range shipbuilding plan calls for spending $3.2 billion for the first cruiser in 2011.

That would be followed by a second cruiser in 2013.

Ultimately, 19 cruisers would be built in coming decades.

The multimission warships fire Tomahawk cruise missiles and serve as part of carrier strike groups.

Theoretically, the current builders of conventional surface combat ships - Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi and General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works in Maine - could be turned into nuclear shipyards.

But such a move would come at great financial expense and take years to complete.

Navy officials have told Congress that it makes more sense to give the work to an existing nuclear yard or to split the work between a nuclear yard and a conventional one.

But lawmakers, in their defense bill, included a provision requiring the Navy to estimate the cost of outfitting conventional yards for nuclear work.

Asked to comment on the bill, Northrop Grumman issued this statement:

"While Northrop Grumman has the capability and capacity to build any kind of naval combatant, it is up to the U.S. Navy to determine what kinds of ships will accomplish their mission.

"At this juncture, it is too speculative to address details associated with the possibility of nuclear-powered surface ships.

"If and when the Navy decides this is the appropriate direction, we stand ready to support."

The nuclear policy was included as part of a defense bill authorizing $693 billion in military programs for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat, won inclusion of an amendment that he co-authored. It would require the creation of an independent bipartisan commission to examine problems of fraud and waste in military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There's been billions of dollars that have been subjected to fraud, waste and abuse over there," Webb said. "We're going to get accountability into the system."

The defense bill was held up for weeks - and its passage jeopardized - after the Senate included an unrelated provision on hate crimes. The measure would have expanded federal hate crime laws to cover attacks on gays.

Senate leaders agreed to abandon the measure after House leaders warned that the provision would sink the bill.

That's because, the House leaders said, of Republican opposition to hate-crimes statutes.